Microsoft Launching AMD Powered Surface Laptop 3 15″
The Rumored AMD Powered Microsoft Laptop Finally Surfaces!
Microsoft made its new 13” and 15” Surface Laptop 3 thin and light notebooks official today at an even in New York. The new 15-inch version is particularly interesting because Microsoft has partnered with AMD to deliver a Surface Laptop 3 powered by tweaked “Microsoft Surface Edition” AMD Ryzen (Zen+) processors with Vega graphics that are claimed to be the fastest in this notebook weight and trim class slightly besting Intel’s 10th Generation Ice Lake and notably beating previous generation Intel and AMD mobile parts especially in graphics workloads.
The Surface Laptop 3 15 will be available in a metal chassis with machined aluminum finish in either matte black or platinum and measures 13.4”x9.6”x0.57” starting at 3.40 lbs. Microsoft maintains the tall 3:2 aspect ratio of the display of previous Surface Laptops but with a larger 15” 2496×1669 (200 dpi) PixelSense display with both Radeon FreeSync and 10-point multi-touch features. Up top is a 720p HD webcam supporting Windows Hello login along with two far-field studio mics. There are no speaker grills, but Microsoft has packed “omnisonic” speakers with Dolby audio into the base (under the keyboard). The keyboard has been tweaked to a shorter 1.3mm travel, but the glass trackpad is 20% larger. Along the edges sit one USB Type-A, one USB Type-C (USB 3.1 but no TB3), a 3.5mm audio jack, and the Surface Connect port that can be used for charging the device up to 80% in an hour. Speaking of charging, Microsoft claims the new device offers up to 11.5 hours of battery life in typical usage.
The Surface Laptop 3 is slightly over half an inch thick with rounded corners and a lid that reportedly can be opened with one finger thanks to an improved invisible hinge design where the laptop supports Instant On technology for getting to work faster.
The 15-inch Surface Laptop 3 can be configured with either a 15W AMD Ryzen 7 3780U Microsoft Surface Edition Processor With RX Vega 11 Graphics (where Microsoft claims the Surface edition features extra graphics horsepower and it can boost to 4GHz) or a Ryzen 5 3580U Microsoft Surface Edition Processor With RX Vega 9 graphics. For comparison, the 13-inch models are available with choice between two 10th Generation Intel Ice Lake processors. Additional specifications include either 8 GB or 16 GB of DDR4 memory and solid-state storage options ranging from 128 GB to 1 TB. The SSD is touted as being “removeable” though the fine print states that it is removeable only by a technician following Microsoft’s repair guidelines. Wireless connectivity includes Wi-Fi 5 802.11ac and Bluetooth 5.0 support on the 15-inch model (the 13-inch notebooks support Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax).
The Surface Laptop 3 comes with Windows 10 Home by default and consumers can add discounted Office 365 with OneDrive storage when configuring their model.
Microsoft’s AMD Ryzen powered Surface Laptop 3 15 starts at $1,199 with pre-orders starting shortly and the first shipments beginning October 22nd 2019. The thin and light laptops come with a 1-year hardware warranty and 90 days of Microsoft tech support covering pre-installed OS and software.
The new Surface devices look sleek and it is nice to see AMD get a high-profile design win especially in the thin and light space. I am looking forward to the reviews and how it stacks up to the competition!
